Fruit: When to Plant and How to Grow It

Fruit is a long-term planting

A vegetable is planted for one season; a blueberry bush or grapevine can bear for 20 years or more. Illinois Extension’s table of small fruits shows the range: standard strawberries last 3-4 years, raspberries 8-10, currants and gooseberries 12-15, and blueberries and grapes more than 20. That changes how you plan. The site, the soil and the variety matter more than the planting week, and mistakes are slow to fix.

Illinois Extension’s planning advice is to plant no more than you can look after. Neglected fruit plants yield little, harbor insects and diseases, and become eyesores.

How timing works for fruit

Most hardy fruit is sold as dormant bare-root or potted plants and planted in early spring, while the plants are still dormant and the soil can be worked. That puts strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and grapes several weeks before your average last frost; the guide for each fruit gives the window for your zone. Hardiness and chill set the limits:

• Hardiness zone decides whether the plant survives winter. Check the zone range for each fruit and variety.
• Chill hours decide whether it blooms. Clemson explains that trees bred for the far South can bloom in a midwinter warm spell and lose their flowers to frost every year when grown farther north, while northern cultivars may never get enough chill in the South.

Tropical and subtropical fruit works differently. Avocado, pineapple and dragon fruit are frost-tender and are planted in warm weather where they can grow outdoors, or grown in containers elsewhere. Figs sit in between: UF/IFAS says they need only about 100 hours of chill and tolerate about 18°F, and NC State rates them for zones 7a-10b.

Site and soil

Choose full sun and well-drained soil, and avoid low spots where water stands after rain. Illinois Extension recommends a moderately elevated or sloping site, which reduces losses from late spring frosts because cold air drains away. It also warns against planting strawberries or brambles where tomatoes, potatoes, peppers or eggplant grew in the past 3-5 years, because of Verticillium wilt.

Where to start

• Strawberries: the fastest return, with a crop the year after planting (or the same year for everbearing types) and room for a bed in most yards.
• Raspberries and blackberries: fruit the year after planting and last about a decade.
• Blueberries: slower to start, about 3 years, but productive for 20 years or more; plant at least two varieties for better crops.
• Figs: a good choice from zone 7 south, since they need little winter chill.
• Grapes: fruit in about 2 years and last 20 or more; the grapes guide explains which type suits your zone.

Each fruit guide gives planting dates for every zone, variety advice from Extension services, and how to prune and harvest.